Ten Frequently Asked Questions on Community-Oriented/Based Medical Education

The numbers of schools introducing community-based and community oriented medical education are expanding worldwide. Yet, there are still many confusing points relevant to concepts and implementation. The aim of this study is to help relieve this confusion. The study presents ten questions on community-based/community-oriented medical education and their answers. These questions are (1) What is the difference between community-oriented and community-based medical education? (2) Should community orientation, in training of health professionals necessarily lead to CBME and vice versa? (3) Is CBME less or more difficult to implement to traditional medical education? (4) Is CBME the responsibility of Community-Medicine, Public Health, or Family Medicine departments? (5) Is the hospital part of the community in CBME? (6) How important are the social perspectives of CBME in relation to innovative medical education? (7) Does CBME only produce less knowledgeable graduates? (8) Are graduates from CBME programs less competent in dealing with patients as they spend most of their undergraduate studies in the community? (9) What is the role of community in the planning and evaluation of CBME programs? (10) Is CBME mainly recommended for developing countries? These questions were judged as frequently asked questions in view of the questions received and posted by our national and international post-graduate medical education students on the question and answer section of the Faculty of medicine, Suez Canal University, Medical education department electronic blackboard in addition to the questions asked by individuals and group populations on different frequently asked questions sections on relevant online websites.